{"id":404131,"date":"2021-11-24T17:22:54","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T17:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=d4a82c09cceb9ed1d412e97bd76230a7"},"modified":"2021-11-24T17:22:54","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T17:22:54","slug":"jury-finds-unite-the-right-organizers-liable-for-25-3-million-in-damages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/24\/jury-finds-unite-the-right-organizers-liable-for-25-3-million-in-damages\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury Finds \u201cUnite the Right\u201d Organizers Liable for $25.3 Million in Damages"},"content":{"rendered":"\"A<\/a>

On Wednesday, a federal jury found all defendants in a lawsuit stemming from the “Unite the Right Rally” — a violent demonstration led by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia — guilty of violating a Virginia state conspiracy law.<\/p>\n

The suit, whose plaintiffs argued that they had violated an 1871 bill designed protect African Americans from vigilante terrorism, took aim at a number of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and members of the alt-right who attended or organized the rally, including neo-Nazi Jason Kessler and conspiracist Richard B. Spencer.<\/p>\n

Also among them are Christopher Cantwell, Michael Peinovich, Andrew Anglin, and James Fields — a white supremacist accused of deliberately ramming his car into a crowd of counter-protesters during the rally, leaving 35 injured and one dead.<\/p>\n

The jury specifically found the defendants guilty of violating multiple claims brought by the plaintiffs, including the violation of a state conspiracy law and the violation of a law “prohibiting racial, religious or ethnic harassment or violence,” according to CNN<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

According to BuzzFeed News<\/em>‘ Christopher Miller<\/a>, a number of defendants will be expected to pay $500,000 each in punitive damages. Among those named include<\/a> Spencer, Cantwell, Kessler, Robert “Azzmador” Ray, Nathan Damigo, Eliott Kline, Matthew Heimbach, Matthew Parrott, Michael Hill, and Michael Tubbs. Five white nationalist organizations are expected to shell out $1 million each on the same conspiracy count. <\/p>\n

During the rally, organized back in August of 2017, demonstrators chanted a variety of anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric, including: “Jews will not replace us.” In court, Spencer attempted to distance himself from this slogan, claiming: “I’m ashamed of it. Those are not my sincerely, thoughtful beliefs.”<\/p>\n

The suit was originally filed on October 11, 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia by a group of Charlottesville residents who were injured as a result of the violence that unfolded during the rally. The plaintiffs were represented by Integrity First for America, a nonpartisan nonprofit formed in response to the rally, in addition to an outside legal team led by commercial litigator Roberta Kaplan.<\/p>\n

“This is a HISTORIC legal victory against the forces of violent hate that threaten our communities & our democracy,” the group said in a statement following the jury’s decision.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Latest \u2013 Truthout<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A federal jury found the white supremacist defendants guilty of violating a Virginia state conspiracy law.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1837,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3537,38604,38915,38916,3540,4,4898,3539,32415],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":404132,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404131\/revisions\/404132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}